The present invention relates to a medicine supply apparatus which supplies medicine contained in a tablet case to a container (phial, bag), and the like by the quantity designated by a prescription in a hospital, and the like.
In hospitals or pharmacies, for example, as described in Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 5282/1982 (B65B1/30), a medicine supply apparatus (referred to as a tablet packing machine in the publication) has been heretofore used to dispense the medicine prescribed by a doctor to a patient. In such system the quantity described in the prescription of the medicines (tablets, capsules, and the like) is discharged from a discharge drum (referred to as an alignment board in the above-described publication) in the tablet case one by one, subsequently collected by a hopper and packed.
Moreover, for example, in Japanese Patent Publication No. 11253/1988, the discharge drum and a motor for driving the drum are disposed on the side of the tablet case (referred to as a tablet supply apparatus), and such constitution can simplify a structure on the side of a tablet supply apparatus main body.
However, when the container for containing the tablet, discharge drum, motor, and the like are integrally constituted as described in the latter publication, the costs of the individual tablet cases increase, so that when a trouble is caused in any of the cases and exchange is necessary, the maintenance/exchange cost soars.
Moreover, since the internal structure of the tablet case single unit is complicated, the repair disadvantageously becomes difficult.
On the other hand, in recent years, there has been a demand for enhancement of space efficiency even in hospitals or pharmacies, and it is urgently necessary to enlarge the capacity without enlarging the installation space of the medicine supply apparatus. On the other hand, the Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 5282/1982 is designed so that a supplementary stand can additionally be installed.
However, the increase of storage capacity is limited even in such constitution. Therefore, it has been urgently necessary to improve the tablet containing efficiency with respect to the entire dimension in the individual tablet cases (referred to as the medicine supply apparatus) as shown in the Japanese Patent Publication No. 11253/1988.
The present invention has been developed to solve such conventional technical problem, and provides a medicine supply apparatus which improves the cost and operability required for the maintenance of the individual tablet cases.
The present invention further provides a medicine supply apparatus which improves the capacity efficiency of each tablet case.
The medicine supply apparatus of the present invention comprises a plurality of tablet cases stored in a main body case storage part, each tablet case includes a container for containing a medicine and provided with a discharge drum for discharging the medicine, and a drive table provided with a motor for driving the discharge drum, a transmission mechanism for transmitting a motor drive force to the discharge drum and a medicine detection sensor for detecting the medicine discharged from the discharge drum, and the drive table and container are detachably attached to the tablet case.
Moreover, the medicine supply apparatus of the present invention is constituted by storing a plurality of tablet cases in a main body case storage part, each tablet case includes a container for containing a medicine and a discharge drum for discharging the medicine from the container, and the discharge drum of the tablet case is dislocated toward one lower side of the container.
Furthermore, in the above-described medicine supply apparatus of the present invention, the motor for driving the discharge drum is disposed on the other lower side of the container.
Additionally, in the above-described medicine supply apparatus of the present invention, one side of the container corresponds to a main body side.